Probie Hunt
by Sunset-leaf
Summary: When mysterious packages start getting delivered to NCIS personeland one of their own doesn't turn up for work, its time to hunt for the Probie...
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter One (Some nightmares can be scarier than others)**

"What the hell are you doing, Probie?"

"Looking for Gold, Tony."

"Why? And what the hell are you wearing?"

"It's my new leopard print mankini, do you like it?"

Tony looked on in disgust as he watched a semi-clothed McGee pan for gold in the stream ahead. McGee had always been a very different person compared to Tony and there were some things about him that eluded Tony, but surely this was taking things too far. Surely even McGee could see that what he was doing was in all cases, just wrong!

"It's er… how do I put this… it's interesting?"

"I like it. So do the girls," McGee said, nodding over towards the two approaching females, both of whom sported tiny bikinis.

"Abby? Ziva? What are you two doing here?"

"We thought we'd come and help McGee here pan for Gold," Ziva said seductively, and Abby giggled beside her.

"It's just that mankini makes him so… handsome," Abby said with a flirtatious gleam in her eye. Both girls were now at either side of McGee and were hanging beautifully off each of his arms.

"Are you jealous, Tony?" McGee asked, a hint of pride floating in his voice.

"What? No, never," Tony began defensively. "How could I ever be jealous of you, Probie?"

"I've got the girls, Tony. Evidently I look better in a mankini than you do."

"What? I'm not wearing a…" Tony looked down at himself to see that he was indeed wearing another vile spandex contraption and choked down the urge to vomit. The others just smiled at each other as if there was some private joke between the three of them.

"I knew you'd like it Tony," McGee said, guiding the girls into the water next to him. "It's just so you."

"What are you talking about, McGee. Why, and most importantly how, did I come to be wearing this, McGee?"

McGee smiled and tapped his nose, "That's for me to know and for you to find out…"

Tony swallowed hard, was McGee flirting with him?

"If you don't like it, I'm sure I could help you get out of it…"

Definitely. McGee was definitely flirting with him.

"I'm alright thanks, McGee; I'll just be going now…thanks for the um… mankini."

"Aww," McGee looked hurt. "Why are you going so soon, Tony? The fun is just about to start."

"What fun? What are you planning McGee?"

Again McGee smiled knowingly, but refused to say a word.

"Oh, look here they come now!" Abby shouted from in the river, where she and Ziva had been getting a little bit close, annoyingly unbeknownst to Tony. If anything happened between those too and Tony missed it, he didn't think he'd be able to forgive himself.

Looking up to where the girls were staring, just coming into view, were two people, a man and a woman. Tony couldn't make out who yet, but the man was definitely wearing nothing but some sort of leaf covering the all important areas. The woman accompanying him was also wearing an arrangement of leaves. Was it Tony, or was this situation just getting weirder and weirder.

The couple came closer and Tony's jaw dropped as he made out who it was, "Gibbs? Director? Why are you here? And why are you dressed like that? Actually, never mind," Tony said after second thoughts. He'd rather not know.

"We're here for the party," came Gibbs' voice.

"What party?"

"McGee's, of course; you've known about this for months, Tony."

"I, er, must have forgotten, Boss."

"Well, you're here now, so what are we waiting for, McGee? Let's get this party started!"

"On it, Boss," McGee said excitedly, pulling out a very well hidden canister from inside his mankini.

"Who wants to be whip-creamed first?"

…

"Oh my God," Tony said, rubbing his eyes and looking at the ceiling. He rolled over and hit the alarm clock square on its head. The loud ringing that had brought him out of his slumber stopped and instead was replaced by an eerie quiet. There would be no more late night meatball and mozzarella subs for Tony; that was definitely not a dream that he wanted to repeat.

"Where the hell did that come from?" he asked his ceiling. "When I get to work, McGee is getting one massive slap to the back of the head…or maybe not." A mental image of McGee in the mankini had edged its way into Tony's head and he wasn't sure he'd ever be able to look at the Probie in the same way again, let alone go near enough to touch him.

Tony rubbed his eyes again and pulled himself out of bed. He needed to wake up and fast. Walking into the bathroom, he stared at himself in the mirror. Was that a grey hair? No, but he wouldn't have been surprised if he had woken up completely white. Instead, Tony ran a hand through his smooth chocolate brown hair and splashed cool water over his face. Staring back in the mirror, Tony groaned as he eyed the dark circles underneath his eyes; tomorrow he needed to get a better night's sleep.

10 minutes passed and Tony was seated at the table in the kitchen, a huge bowl of Shreddies sat in front of him and the smell of his shampoo wafted around the apartment. There was nothing like the feeling after a hot shower, after a not so pleasant night. Spooning the cereal into his hungry mouth, Tony eyed the T.V. in front of him, looking for anything related to NCIS to come up on the news. It had been slow recently, not that he was complaining, but surely that meant something had to happen soon, right?

The news finished and Tony placed his bowl by the sink, it could wait until he got home later. He turned of the T.V. and picked up all the necessary items from his counter. Suited and booted, he went and opened his front door and was about to step out into the morning light, when he noticed a package on his doorstep.

"What's this then?" It could have been a present from Lacy; after all he thought he deserved something after his performance two nights ago, even he had shocked himself!

But no, it wasn't her writing and besides, scribbled across the top of the brown papered parcel in permanent black pen, was the message, "NCIS C/O Tony DiNozzo."

"Dang, it's NCIS. Why couldn't it have been something interesting? Although it was weird that it had been sent to his house and not the HQ, and come to think of it, there was no address, so it must have been delivered by hand. Slightly more intrigued, Tony locked up the door behind him and picked up the parcel. Examining it more closely, he walked over to his car and got in, placing the parcel on the front passenger seat. His fingers twitched desperately as he held himself off opening the parcel. If Gibbs found out he opened a parcel addressed to NCIS before he saw it, life wouldn't be worth living. Besides the last time he did that, it hadn't worked out to well for him; and it was too early in the morning to start battling another bout of infectious disease. Starting the engine, Tony set of for NCIS, the package safely nestled in the front seat next to him.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2 (Piecing it together)

"Delivery for Abigail Scuito," came a shout from the entrance to Abby's lab.

Abby came rushing out from the room next door with a smile plastered across her face, "Ooh, its my new shoes!" She often got packages sent here; she spent most of her time here anyway, it made sense. She'd been waiting for these shoes for close to a month; they had been out of stock and she'd trawled that website everyday waiting for more to be released. Normally she wouldn't, but these shoes were just perfect!

Her face fell slightly at the sight of the package however; it was just too small for the shoes she had ordered. The smile was replaced by curiosity as she took the package from the boy and turned it over in her hands. The message was written in permanent black marker and said 'NCIS C/O Abby Scuito'.

"Where did you get this from, Adam?"

The kid took the IPOD earphones from his ears and shot Abby a look of confusion, "Huh?"

"Where did you get the package, Adam?" Abby repeated.

"It was with the others, just like usual."

"Ok…" Abby gave her concentration back to the box and walked away from the kid, who shrugged and reinserted his earphones, heading out of the lab.

Abby sat down slowly and slowly began to study the package. What the hell was it?

Gibbs stepped out from the elevator and made his way into the bullpen. Tony and McGee weren't in yet, but he could see Ziva working at her desk. He walked past, expecting to see a write-up of some sort; they'd just finished a case and he had wanted their reports in today; but instead he saw her craning over a map of DC.

Gibbs didn't say anything and instead chose to sit at his desk and look over towards Ziva. Ziva promptly looked up and shot a confused look at Gibbs.

"Why would NCIS need a map of DC?"

Now it was Gibbs's turn to look confused, "What are you talking about, Ziva?"

"I got sent a map this morning; it was here behind the desk when I came in. The guy who gave it to me said it had a note with it saying that it was for NCIS, care of me." Gibbs lips tightened and his eyes hardened in response. Ziva held up a piece of paper written on by permanent black ink with the words 'NCIS C/O Ziva David'.

Gibbs looked down into his own hands in which he held the envelope that he had retrieved seconds earlier from the desk he was now seated at. It had been laying there, a plain white envelope, black marker neatly printed out the words 'NCIS C/O Leroy Jethro Gibbs'.

He eyed the envelope curiously and opened it carefully, checking it for any trace of wires or powder. He took out the piece of paper contained within it and held it up. It was completely blank and could have been interchangeable with any other blank piece of A4 paper if it had not been for the hole that had been cut out of it. Slightly off-centre, a hole about 1cm in diameter had been cut away.

"I take it back," Ziva said "NCIS would have more need for a map than…that."

Gibbs stayed silent in agreement and looked over as Tony entered the room. He sauntered over to the bullpen a package in him arms. Smiling, he swung round onto his chair and proudly placed the package on his desk in front of him.

"You'll never guess what I got this morning…" Tony said triumphantly, grinning.

"A package for NCIS, care of Tony DiNozzo?" Ziva guessed, smirking towards Tony.

Tony looked deflated, "How did you…"

Ziva and Gibbs both held up their own presents; Ziva her note and Gibbs his envelope.

"Oh…"

"Have you opened yours yet, Tony?" Ziva asked, curious,

"Does it look open Zi-va?" Ziva gave Tony a childish look.

"Then I guess it would be a no," Tony said, "What did you two get?"

"A map of DC and a piece of paper with a hole in it," Ziva said.

"Huh?"

"I have no idea," Ziva answered, as clueless as Tony.

Tony looked down at his package and moved his hands ready to open it when the elevator doors opened. Expecting to see McGee, Tony was confused when Abby hopped out onto the floor.

"Abbs?"

"Gibbs, I've got something to show you."

"You too?" Ziva asked; this was turning out to be a really weird day.

"Me 'too'?"

Ziva, Tony and Gibbs each held up their packages and Abby tilted her head slightly.

"Uh-oh."

"What do you mean, 'uh oh', Abbs?" Gibbs said starting to take dislike to the packages they were receiving.

"I think something has happened to McGee."

"Why?"

Well I can't get hold of him, and then this morning I got this," Abby held up a picture of herself and McGee, a thick red circle around McGee's face. "It's one of those photos you get from machines in malls, we took it last year once when we were out; this one of his copies. It got sent to me this morning, like this."

"Black marker pen?" Gibbs said, knowing the answer.

"Yeah…addressed to NCIS care of…"

"Abby Scuito," came a mumbled reply from the rest of the team.

"Someone's playing us," Tony said from behind his desk.

"Ya think, DiNozzo?" Gibbs said sharply.

Everybody turned his or her attention to Tony's as-of-yet unopened package, lying on his desk. Tony began peeling back the brown paper packaging to reveal a white cardboard box. Slowly e opened the lid and jumped back at what he saw.

Gibbs rose from his seat and walked over to Tony's desk; Ziva peered over from her own desk.

"What is it Tony?"

"It's a…there's a timer."

Ziva was out of her seat and joined Gibbs and Abby by Tony's desk. Gibbs turned to Ziva as she eyed the package. She looked into the box and after a few seconds reached in and gently removed the timer.

"I can't see any evidence that it's a bomb."

"Are you 100 positive?" Gibbs said.

"I can't be 100 but close to."

"That's not good enough, Tony get a bomb squad up here, now."

13 minutes passed as the timer counted down from 37 minutes to 24. The man stood with the timer looked over to Gibbs and shook his head, "It's not a bomb, Agent Gibbs."

"Then what is it counting down for?" Tony asked.

"I think I might have an idea…" Abby said from Gibbs desk from where she'd been playing around with the piece of paper and the map. "I used to do stuff like this when I was a kid, with my brother."

"What? Send timers through the post?" Ziva questioned.

"No, I mean puzzles and stuff. Look, the map and the paper are the same size. If you put one on top of the other, you get…" She looked closely at the hole in the paper that was now placed firmly over a portion of the map that read, "Warehouse 33."

"The docks?" Tony asked, getting a nod from Abby.

Gibbs glanced at the timer which read '23:45:12' and counting. "In that case we have 23 minutes to get to the docks."


End file.
